“I teach, but I’m no teacher”: Storying and troubling EFL teacher identity in South Korea

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Wednesday I)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: The power of transnational experiences in morphing teacher identity and teaching practice

Proposal

Research has demonstrated time and again that a teacher’s professional identity is shaped, reshaped, and adapted throughout a teacher’s first years in the classroom (e.g., Pennington & Richards, 2016; S⊘reide, 2006, Xu, 2012). This is especially true for native speakers of English who choose to work abroad as English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers (Tsui, 2007).

This paper explores the identity (re)negotiations of David (pseudonym), a recent college graduate from Minnesota, who relocates to South Korea to teach EFL for one year. Using interactive interviewing techniques (Ellis, Kiesinger, Tillman-Healy, 1997), classroom observations, and monthly written reflections, the researcher attempts to unpack, story, and trouble David’s emerging professional identity and his reluctance to identify as a teacher. Data analysis is framed by Sachs’ (2005) conceptualization of teacher professional identity as an individual’s negotiation of (1) how to be, (2) how to act, and (3) how to understand one’s role and responsibilities. Notably, David states:

“Lately, I’ve been thinking about what it means for me to call myself a teacher. Yes, I teach, but I didn’t study education; I’m not licensed to teach. I am essentially gifted with this title of “teacher” because I am a native English speaker. I didn’t earn it. I didn’t work for it. By taking the title, aren’t I disrespecting all of the hard work that my Korean colleagues have had to do over the years to earn the same title? I teach, but I’m no teacher.”

The presentation will conclude with a brief discussion of how to best support novice EFL teachers’ ongoing identity (re)negotiations using reflective and dialogic techniques, including guided reflection (Hamiloglu, 2014), reflexive personal commentary (Barkhuizen, 2016), and narrative story-ing (Said, 2014).

Author

• Laura M Kennedy, Michigan State University